A Yellow Chute Spiraling

Thirty-odd years ago

Maybe eight years old

I stood before a mouth

A portal

Of plastic and possibility.

It was a yellow chute 

Spiraling

Round and round. 

I began sliding down 

towards the ground 

When I slid into you

Roughly halfway down. 

Your name was Holly. It echoed. 

We both hesitated there

In the diffused

Yellow light.

With our shoes pressed against the side

We defied school bells

And gravitational forces

Which beckoned us 

From that liminal space 

Suspended in time.  

But the world beyond kept ringing 

So on you slid, down the slide.

Thirty-odd years later

I still feel the warmth of that yellow plastic

With feet still pressing

Against the side.